Nassau Hall has long been an iconic location for campus protests.
Princeton’s website on systemic racism uses an archival photo of a student protester in front of Nassau Hall as the cover image for its page celebrating campus activism. The building has served as the site of numerous protests that successfully spurred change at the University on issues such as racism, ethnic studies, the Vietnam War, Title IX reform, and more.
This fall, protesting is now officially prohibited on the lawn in front of Nassau Hall.
Princeton rolled out a new “Protests and Free Expression” website on Tuesday, Aug. 29, which included updated guidelines for free speech on campus. The amended policies further restrict the locations where protests can be held, as well as the forms of protest that are permissible on campus.
As students return to Princeton, the University has not shied away from acknowledging this policy. During an orientation event, University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 hinted that the University will pull back on issuing statements commenting on events outside of the University community.
“I have rarely issued statements in the past, and I expect to do so even less frequently in the future,” he told first-years on Tuesday.
During orientation programming, some first-years were handed flyers, distributed by the Princeton Progressive Coalition, which read, “Eisgruber may praise free speech, but he has a long history of silencing it.”
The efforts to restrain protest activities and clarify rules followed a weeks-long period of sustained protest in the spring, which included 15 arrests related to the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” in McCosh Courtyard, and later on Cannon Green. Universities across the country are implementing new restrictions on political protest as students return to campuses for the fall semester.
While much of the updated guidelines reflect and clarify pre-existing policies, such as restrictions on amplified sound, there are noteworthy changes on the site. The FAQ section of the site notes that the lawn in front of Nassau Hall, Cannon Green, and Prospect House grounds are not permissible protest locations. Last year’s regulations neither explicitly allowed nor restricted demonstrations at these locations.
While protesters are still permitted to use the concrete walkways in front of Nassau Hall, the grass is off limits, which would make it challenging to assemble large groups for demonstrations.
Aditi Rao GS, one of the 13 people arrested on April 29 during a pro-Palestine protest at Clio Hall, found it hard to picture how a protest could feasibly be held at Nassau Hall under the new restrictions.
“Making it difficult to protest in front of Nassau Hall is crazy … where else does one protest the institution than the home of the institution itself?” she said in an interview with The Daily Princetonian.
On Cannon Green, the main site of the spring’s protest, the University has placed new signage that reads, “This space is reserved for officially sanctioned University events and may not be used for other organized activities without permission. Informal recreation is permitted.”
The amended guidelines for “protest and dissent activities” clarify a stricter timeline for registering demonstrations that bleed into the town. They also include further restrictions on encampments, although camping and sleeping outside was already banned prior to the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment.”
Rao linked the updated policy to disciplinary actions over protests in the spring. “I think what the university is quite evidently attempting to do right now is to, for the 16 or so students that it knows are still viable organizers in the movements, create an easy reason for further disciplining,” she said. All of the students arrested at Clio have since been given disciplinary probation, she noted, making them more vulnerable to additional discipline.
On Tuesday, the same day the updated protest guidelines were released, Eisgruber addressed new students at a mandatory “Academic Freedom and Free Expression” event. This is the third year that Eisgruber has held such an event as part of orientation.
Eisgruber’s talk was originally slated to be in conversation with Amaney Jamal, Dean of the Princeton School for Public and International Affairs, but Jamal was sick the day of the event. The talk was moderated by Vice President for Campus Life Rochelle Calhoun, who faced calls to resign from faculty in April for her characterization of the protesters who occupied Clio Hall.
Eisgruber’s commitment to free expression has long been a hallmark of his 11-year tenure as University president. When the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” began in April, Eisgruber embraced “time, place, and manner” limitations on campus activities, which affirmed the University’s ability to regulate protests, writing that these rules are “viewpoint-neutral and content-neutral.” He reiterated the University’s stance at the Tuesday event.
He also addressed the question of institutional statements on international events, noting that he planned to issue them less frequently going forward — a marked shift in his previous stance.
“It’s not the job of a university or a university president to validate your opinions or to tell students or faculty members what to think about the issues of the day. On the contrary, it’s my job to ensure that people on this campus, including all of you, have the freedom to say what they think,” he said.
Eisgruber published a statement in October 2023 condemning Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel, and one in 2022 regarding the war in Ukraine. The University has a long-standing tradition of institutional restraint. Eisgruber has previously said that he would avoid making statements unless he wanted “to reaffirm or elaborate values that are fundamental to our community or mission.”
This heightened hesitancy around issuing statements mirrors the recent actions of his Ivy president colleagues. Both Harvard and Cornell have adopted a policy of institutional neutrality within the last few months, vowing to forgo statements that comment on events outside of their universities.
While several university presidents have suffered major blows following inquiries about campus antisemitism and political speech about the war in Gaza, Eisgruber has escaped public backlash for student conduct on Princeton’s campus. Pressure following congressional testimonies have led to the resignations of multiple Ivy League presidents, most recently Columbia President Minouche Shafik.
Universities continue to face pressure to contain student protests, and are implementing restrictions on free expression ahead of the fall semester. In June, the University of Pennsylvania released new temporary guidelines for campus demonstrations banning actions such as camping and using spray chalk on university property.
Like at Princeton, there are new notices posted at various locations on University of Pennsylvania’s campus alerting students that “overnight occupations” and non-approved protests are not permitted. Last week, the University of California implemented a ban on masking “to conceal identity,” and the chairs of two U.S. House committees sent letters to several universities to ask what administrators had done “to prepare for unauthorized encampments, protests, and other disruptions.”
On some campuses, protests and their resulting administrative crackdowns seem to have picked up where they left off. Four non-students were arrested on Thursday, August 29 at a pro-Palestinian “die-in” demonstration at the University of Michigan.
Princeton Israeli Apartheid Divest, a coalition advocating for University divestment from Israel, has announced plans for a rally in McCosh Courtyard on Tuesday, Sept. 3 — the first day of classes for the fall 2024 semester.
Correction: This piece has been edited since publication to reflect that restrictions on the use of chalk and tape on campus existed prior to the creation of the new protest website. Furthermore, the article was updated to clarify that the University website outlines new procedures for registering protests that go into town with the municipality, but did not change its own protest registration timeline.
Annie Rupertus is a head News editor for the ‘Prince’ from Philadelphia, Pa. who often covers activism and campus governance.
Associate News editor Miriam Waldvogel contributed reporting.
Please send any corrections to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com.
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